


On a Boat

by Tierfal



Category: Death Note
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-20
Updated: 2010-02-20
Packaged: 2017-10-07 10:19:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/64182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tierfal/pseuds/Tierfal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Light is considering throwing himself over the side and trying to drown.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On a Boat

**Author's Note:**

  * For [IceQueenRex](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=IceQueenRex).



> Are _you_ [On a Boat](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avaSdC0QOUM&feature=channel)? The prompt was "floating on a boat," so I maintain that this isn't entirely my fault. Beware language worse than the rating should, by all rights, permit.

It is a normal day for the Task Force: L has shepherded them all onto a yacht, they're sailing around Tokyo Bay, and Matsuda is belting out a song he found on the internet.

Light is considering banging his head down on the railing in the hopes of shattering his skull.

Matsuda dances by, alternately skipping shamelessly and slouching in what he seems to think is a thuggish walk.

"_I'm on a boat, motherfucker, don't you ever forget_!"

Light is considering throwing himself over the side and trying to drown.

When Matsuda has gone off to rap obscenely somewhere else, L wanders up next to Light, his hands in his pockets, the wind tugging indefatigably at his hair.

"Ryuzaki," Light says, struggling to keep his voice level, "why are we on a boat?"

"You know very well why we're on a boat," L answers patiently. "I thought it would be a good team-building exercise now that we've sorted through all of the Business."

When L says 'the Business,' he means 'the Kira Business,' and there's always the smallest, faintest, strangest hint of relief in his voice. It's not very L-ish to give a damn about anything, let alone to be genuinely pleased that they've figured it out and burned every scrap of Death Note they can find.

_Death Note_. The words should send a shudder down Light's spine, should make him tremble with instinctive recognition, but they don't. He doesn't feel anything, unless you count a kind of vague ominousness that he thinks the others sense just as acutely as he does. He feels empty. He feels like a bucket filled with something—something odious and unspeakable and terrifying, but _something_—and then poured out. He feels brittle and plastic and used, and he doesn't know where to go from here.

This is another reason why they are on a motherfucking boat, which Matsuda will be pleased to know he has not forgotten yet. Light couldn't speak when the evidence clicked into place—he couldn't make his throat form words; he literally couldn't coax sounds out of his voice box. He wouldn't have known what to say anyway, but it was scary, being trapped like that—and then the agitation. L had tucked him away in their shared bedroom, leaving the chain on, listening to it rattle as Light sorted coins, sorted papers, sorted playing cards, color-coded case files, paired up all his socks and then rearranged them and paired them up again. The words _catatonic excitement_ flitted at the corners of his mind, but he didn't want to look at them straight-on.

He'd calmed down after a few days. He'd slept a lot. He'd woken up screaming once—just once—and L had clapped a surprisingly strong hand over his mouth and held him until he could breathe again.

He looks at L, who is staring out over the water, reflective but unrevealing. Isn't that the epitome of L-ness? Give the impression; divulge none of the details. Protect yourself above all else. Pick the right distance, the exact right distance—close enough to be desperately interesting, just too far away to be understood.

"I hate it when people ask me," Light remarks, watching his own shadow play on L's profile; "but what are you thinking about?"

"I'm thinking," L murmurs idly, "that if you were to impersonate Leonardo DiCaprio, you would need a new haircut."

Perhaps this is why L doesn't usually share his thoughts.

Light realizes that he's staring and looks at the water instead, then starts to run a hand through his hair only to decide that he doesn't want to encourage comparisons.

"I'm also thinking," L sighs into the wind, "that you're coping rather well."

Light shrugs. He can feel L's eyes on him for a long, long moment—eyes that are so much a part of his world now, so much a part of how things are, that they don't even unnerve him anymore. He likes to think they soften for him, just a little, because only L has the capacity to process his mind, which means that only L knows what he has endured.

"You're very resilient, Light-kun," L says.

Light scoffs.

"You are," L insists. "You recovered very quickly from a substantial blow."

"Blow to _what_?" Matsuda chirps loudly from right behind them.

They both jump, and then they both turn on him and give him their frostiest glares.

Matsuda winks broadly and saunters off, singing again. "_Take a good hard look at the motherfucking boat_…!"

Light takes a good hard look at the motherfucking L instead, ignoring the shouts of anger and howls of anguish as Matsuda stumbles upon the rest of the team and waltzes into an extremely belated reprimand.

L looks back, smiling a bit, and the breeze drags his bangs into his luminous eyes. "But that's over with," he points out. "And now you're the king of the world."

Light gives him a black look, and L beams.

Light tries not to smile back. "Isn't there some cake that you could be eating?"

"Yes," L informs him. "Heaps of it. You could use the sugar, Light-kun. You've lost weight in the last few weeks."

Light opens his mouth to protest, but what emerges instead is a breathless bit of laughter as L pokes him in the ribs.

"I've had a lot to think about," he defends, writhing away from L's mischievous fingertips.

L catches Light's hand and seizes it, his cold but utterly unrepentant.

"You have," L replies. "And now you can stop thinking."

Light decides, as he lets L pull him into the cabin and over to the desserts, that not-thinking, at least for now, sounds pretty good. Maybe, at least for now, all he needs to know is that he's safe, and he's healing, and—if L's vise grip on his hand is anything to go by—he's loved.

And he's on a _boat_.


End file.
